


Some Say the World Will End in Fire

by kayura_sanada



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (And By Overzealous We Mean Evil), (for once), Anxiety, Blood Loss, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluffy Ending, Happy Healthy Relationship, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Water Torture, M/M, Overzealous Fans, Panic Attacks, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Is An Attentive Boyfriend, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9831806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Tony and Steve have a fan. This fan wants to help them grow stronger – by making them face their worst fears.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Also, I am a fan of cosplay, and while I can see Tony being a secret fan, I can also see him being kind of an ass about it.

It wasn’t even the ‘about to die’ bit that really got to him. Of course, he wasn’t thrilled about that development. Actually, that development might be number two on the reasons why this moment really sucked. But the fact remained that it was not, in fact, the biggest reason.

The biggest would be that Steve Rogers had to watch.

Well, _had_ to might be an oversimplification. They’d both been captured, as it were; they’d managed to sneak into the enemy’s base without too much of a problem. Probably because the rather alarmingly portly man had been holed up in, of all places, the basement of a grand hotel in Washington, D.C. (Tony had already cracked all the jokes possible about the place being called Gaylord Hotel, but that didn’t mean he was over it and wouldn’t bust a gut all over again at the mention of it, because _wow_. Just wow. Also, it didn’t help that an anime convention was being held there at the time, because _wow_.)

The short, wide young man might also have been a fan of said anime, come to think of it; his villain outfit did have that over-the-top flare. A bright yellow jumpsuit with a red cape on the back, with his hair mohawked in the stupidest damn fashion he’d ever seen in his life. Being defeated by _that_ was just insulting.

They’d gone to the bottom of the hotel, only to have some weird metal contraption spring up around them. Steve had thrown his shield, only to have it glide along the ceiling and stop on a dime at the corner of the basement. Thor’s hammer sizzled uselessly from outside the room; it didn’t even bang against the metal. Nothing did. Tony’s attempts to break through on his and Cap’s end had involved a lot of crashing and not a lot of actual contact. It was clearly magnetism at work, thought Tony couldn’t fully understand the mechanics of it without getting to play with it a bit. The metal appeared thin, for shit’s sake.

So the basement had become a metal box, one that let no one in or out. And Steve had no shield, and Tony’s systems had gone to hell in a handbasket from the magnetism, leaving him without Friday. That left him battling his own damn suit and Steve without his weapon. Then had stepped in the out of shape villain.

At least, Tony had mentioned at the time, they’d found out what had likely happened to the traffic systems in the city.

Four minutes in, and though Tony had to admit that his armor was certainly taking the brunt of Magnet Man’s (come on, kid, just because Magneto was already taken…) attack like a champ, its uselessness with not just his repulsors, which would go haywire the instant he used them, but also the simple mechanism of movement made it not-so-hot for anything other than a standing shield. Though, in hindsight, that might have worked out better than getting out while Steve distracted the man.

Magnet Man (ugh) then hid behind another of his little metallic Coward Cages (though Tony was sure the man had a different name for the things) and let Steve slam the hell out of the air around it before finally unleashing his ultra super evil move of awesome evilness (and again, there was likely a different name for it; Tony had started blanking out the useless monologuing years ago).

And that would be how Steve found himself stuck between Magnet Man’s (uuuurrrggh) metal wall and some weird glowing metal thing in the shape of a giant hockey puck, unable to move out of a two-by-three foot diameter. And that would also be how Tony, even with Cap’s amazing training, found himself stuck in a hollow cube that the man had dropped from his Cage using that same stupid giant hockey puck, his chest encased.

And that would be how he was now suspended over what looked like a freaking swimming pool of water, a second giant hockey puck in the kid’s hands, the sides of his triumphant grin hidden by his jowls as he held Tony prisoner.

Now, all of this was wretched enough. The enemy was a first timer, he was not in the best of shape, and his weapons were the man-made version of a freaking mutant villain’s superpower. Now, granted, the surprise element could have explained away some of that, but really. No matter the level of surprise a large man with a new ability could hold, there was just no excuse for them getting caught so completely when greater, more well-versed enemies had failed. (And next time, they were going to change it up so that someone without a reliance on some sort of metal was going to be in the team. What had they been thinking?)

Clint would never let them live it down. Or Carol. Or anyone, for that matter. This would go on the record books as their most pathetic defeat in their historically long record of pathetic defeats.

To that end, dying might not be half bad.

But, of course, there were a couple of problems. One, _a giant swimming pool_. Firstly, how in hell did that even get there? Didn’t the hotel have one of those somewhere normal? Like, say, the first floor? In the back? What would one be doing down in the basement? But it wasn’t really a _swimming pool_ , and he should try to remember that. Swimming pools weren’t made of what looked like freaking glass. (And hopefully it _was_ glass; he would have a chance in hell of kicking himself free.) But since it would likely need to be able to be manipulated by magnets or magnetic waves of some kind, the chances of it being glass were slim.

And if he was going to die, why did it have to be in a giant vat of water? There were so many different ways to kill a person, and this brainiac just decided, 'hey, I can manipulate metal! What would be the best way to use that to my advantage? Oh, I know! Giant swimming pool!’ Ugh. And Tony had just a teensy-weensy issue with standing water, specifically a lot of water in one place, even more specifically giant pools of water in which a man could easily drown. Or even a bucket of water; any amount of water cupped in something man-made and large enough for one’s face to be sunk into. Small, tiny problem with that. One he may or may not still sometimes have nightmares about. Nightmares that left him clawing against his lover’s hold and basically making a mess of their night.

That… that, he might have almost managed to face with a tiny amount of aplomb. (Not a lot of aplomb, mind you, but a tiny bit, at least.) But there were a couple of other things to go with it.

According to the monologuing, into which he was beginning to tune in order to get some idea as to how he might be able to escape this death trap, the water was ice cold. As in, those weird little bobbing shapes? The ones that almost seemed invisible below him? Those would be ice cubes. Because, ho ho, everything should end where it began, right? “And I know you. I’m your biggest fan. Both of you. All of you! And this is where it started for you, isn’t it?”

Biggest fan? Didn’t that sound like some sort of cartoon he knew? Some cartoon Clint or Peter had introduced him to; those two had odd ideas of entertainment.

For all that had happened, they still didn’t know this random guy’s villainous backstory. Why he was doing this, what his ultimate goal was. Maybe if he hadn’t been suspended over a giant swimming pool full of ice water, he might have cared a little more.

“If you’re a fan of ours,” Steve said, his voice calm, coaxing, as if he was trying to get Tony to get up off the mat and try one more time, “then you should know we’re not your enemies.”

“No, duh,” said the young man, waving Steve’s words away. Tony had no idea what was happening with the conversation. “You’re the good guys. I’m not evil. I just want to help. You’re all heroes, sure, but you’re weak. You know? I figure, if I’m going to play,” he said, waving the giant hockey puck in his hand, making Tony bob up and down in the air. He gritted his teeth and pushed against the metal crushing his arms to his waist. Nothing. “I should use it to help, you know, the best. And that’s you all!” He waved his free hand this time, encompassing the entire room, or the entire hotel, or even the whole world. Who knew.

_Oh_. Fan like rival. Fan like, “I wanna beat you!” That kind of fan. Okay. That made way more sense.

“So you just chose to play at being a villain and hope, what? That you can just skip away at the end?” Maybe Tony shouldn’t have opened his mouth; the man’s attention was suddenly back on him, eying the distance between him and the water’s surface. He didn’t hold any illusions about how things would go in there. If that barrier wasn’t glass – hell, even if it was – chances were slim that he would be able to break out before the cold got to him. And that was if he didn’t freak in full-on panic mode.

Which brought him to the worst part. He was going to be dropped into a pool of literal ice water – and Steve was going to see it happen.

Steve could look away if he wanted to. He could focus on getting out, on Magnet Man, on anything else. But just as he held no doubt that Steve would pound his fists bloody against the force keeping him in place if he could, he also knew Steve wouldn’t look away. He would watch, because he couldn’t let himself miss Tony’s last moments, or how he’d been unable to stop them.

And for that, if for nothing else, Tony wanted to live.

And that would be when he was sent plunging into the water.

_“Tony!”_

His first thought was _cold_. Holy _shit_ , it was like rolling naked into a snowbank. Of course, immediately after that feeling was the intrusive, pervasive feel of _water_. Everywhere. Water everywhere. _Water everywhere!_

He freaked out.

He tried to thrash his way free, only to be reminded that his arms were dead weights, clamped to his sides in a freaking metal box – a metal box that didn’t even touch his skin, not really; the force of whatever the hell magnetization process the kid used was still in play, pressing against him even as water roiled around his face and legs, leaving his chest free but not the parts that _mattered_ , that would keep him from _drowning_ , oh, God, the water…

No force crushed against his head. Nothing tugged at his hair. That’s what he had to remember. He wasn’t being held down. If he just got to the bottom of the pool – there. He could sit on the bottom, get his legs beneath him, and push up… but when he tried, he felt something shoving him back down. Nothing on his head, thank everything. Nothing tangible, even. But still he felt a pressing weight on him – his chest, and back, and arms. Keeping him down. Whatever the kid had used to keep him suspended in midair, he now used to hold him underwater.

Oh. And _oh_. It was too much like having his head shoved into a bucket.

He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands and feet and nose and ears were numb, all numb. Already. Even if he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t see well through the distortion of the ice in the water. But could Steve see? If nothing else, he had to see the bright peach-pink of Tony’s flesh as he sat helplessly on the bottom of the pool, his lungs slowly emptying of vital oxygen.

Oh, gods. He needed to breathe. He needed air. He needed to not be underwater anymore. He couldn’t move. He tugged and pulled and scooted his feet against the bottom of the pool, but he wasn’t moving. He couldn’t move! He thrashed in place, even as his brain told him to stay the fuck still, to preserve his energy. To not waste oxygen. But the very fact that he struggled and couldn’t move, couldn’t escape… his heart pounded in his chest, and that was using up oxygen, anyway, so why not try to get the fuck loose before he died horribly?

In the worst way possible. For him. And for Steve.

Because while Tony still had nightmares about being forced underwater, Steve still had nightmares about falling into the ice. And about losing Tony as he had everyone and everything in his time.

Oh, gods. Not like this. He didn’t want to leave such a mark on Steve.

_Calm down. Just calm down._ Okay. He could do that. He could do that, right? Sure he could. He just needed to not think about the water, or the cold, or the pressure against his body keeping him down, trapped, helpless…

Oh, shit, he was freaking out again.

It was the ice, more than anything else, that got him to stop fighting so hard. Not because it snapped sense into him or anything; it just numbed his entire body, making it too hard for him to fight back. He started shivering so hard he couldn’t do much more than curl into himself as best he could with the metal still boxing in his arms and chest. He couldn’t feel his feet or hands at all. His entire face was numb. Yet at the same time – thank goodness – it all still hurt.

He opened his eyes.

The vision of water set his heart to pounding all over again. His brain short-circuited, and for an instant, he thought the person he saw hazily through the broken image of the water was darker-skinned, rougher-faced. He tried to move his arms, but of course he couldn’t. It felt like being held down, hands tied behind his back…

His chest burned. His skin burned almost hot from the freezing cold. His lungs ached.

Just like this. Like his worst nightmare. He was going to die.

And before him, the face wavering in the icy water like mist, was a blond-haired blob with moving limbs of peach. Steve. Steve, whose hands were braced still on the air just before the magnetic barrier Magnet Man had created. Steve, whose mouth was moving almost soundlessly; Tony thought, if he strained his numbed ears, he just might hear the garbled sound of Steve’s cry.

Goddamn it, if he was going to die, he would prefer it to be with a little more dignity than undressed, out of his armor, under icy water, being held captive by some guy in some weird costume holding a giant hockey puck.

Shit. If only he could get the hell to the top of the pool, he could rip out one of his repulsors and throw it at the hockey puck. Even though the metal itself wouldn’t do much, nor would the repulsors work properly, he could easily use them to destabilize the magnetic field around Magnet Man’s metal devices.

If he could use his arms, he could send Steve the same message.

Not that it would do him any good alone, of course; he was stuck. And it wasn’t like anyone else could get in.

It was so cold. Maybe that was why his brain was being so stupid. Or maybe because he couldn’t _breathe_.

But he couldn’t think about that. Oh, gods, if he thought about that, he would lose it again, and his head felt like fuzz and he knew he couldn’t afford to let himself slide away.

Vision. Could Vision move through the metal? Could Vision grab it, or get it to Tony? If only he had the thing nearby, he could use his damn nose if he had to. He could…

Ice. The _ice_. He could use the safety protocols on his damn armor. If it still worked. Shit, he was stupid.

He opened his mouth and pulled some of the ice into his mouth.

It was already melting, which only helped him. He couldn’t feel his lips or his tongue, but he still knew how they _should_ have felt, and through that, he managed to get a piece in his teeth. Using his tongue as well as he could without feeling it, he licked the thing, letting the last of his body’s warmth melt the ice. He found that if he thought of the water as drifting in space, he could almost keep himself from panicking. So long as he didn’t consider anything else up there with him.

His lungs burned as he worked; he chest seized, forcing his body to heave for air he refused to reach for. His entire body quaked. Yet he felt barely any of it; his head felt blanketed by a white towel. His vision blacked. It no longer hurt. Even as he found himself trying to breathe, anyway; even as his body betrayed him and convulsed and he gave up and bit into the sharpened part of the ice, it didn’t hurt. It should have; he was vaguely aware of the ice sliding through muscle and gums, and though his vision was lost, still he thought – or, more likely, imagined – he saw a line of red in the water.

He had no idea if it would work. He’d never tested it in water, because why the hell would he go into water? Especially without his suit.

His mouth opened. He breathed in, and it was not air, nor the vacuum of space, that greeted him. He choked.

He was dying. He was going to die. For once, they weren’t going to pull him up at the last second. He wasn’t going to sputter up from the water and gasp raggedly for air, nails scoring marks into the battery – the battery that wasn’t, wasn’t in his chest, he had the operation, he wasn’t… that wasn’t a thing anymore, oh, gods. He was going to die in the water.

Something splashed up above him. For a crazy second, he thought it might be Steve. But when he forced himself to gather his last shreds of sanity and look, Steve’s blue-and-peach form was still banging away at the invisible barrier around him. He heard the water sploosh, however, like something dove into it. The freezing water caressed him; the feel of it was more like a pressure than an actual touch; he didn’t shiver all that much anymore.

And then something ricocheted off the metal cube around his middle, the feeling reverberating all the way up his shoulders and down to his toes. Every joint suddenly ached. A horrible crashing sound broke all around him, and suddenly the world fell apart. The water crested around him like a wave, like a riptide. And then his helmet slammed onto his face hard enough to make him finally feel his nose again.

The suit’s filtration system booted right up. It was what he clung to while his body was thrashed around like a rag doll in a washing machine. He felt pinpricks against his skin as, suddenly, there was a flat surface beneath him. His body tumbled to a halt just as the helmet flushed out the last of the water and he choked and choked and gasped out the water he hadn’t even been fully aware of swallowing.

“Tony! Tony, answer me!”

“Agh! Dammit, now I’m all wet!”

What…? It took everything in him, but he got one hand beneath him enough to lift his head and look around. His suit lay scattered all over the damn basement floor. Some parts were almost identifiable – like that one, that one to his far left, close to Steve, was his breastplate. But others were little more than broken wires and twisted metal. They looked like they’d been blasted away from some sort of epicenter – himself. His body, in the middle of the carnage. Almost as if washing it clean was the icy water, its image distorted by the shards still frozen in its midst, no longer restrained by a pool but instead splashing against the invisible barrier holding Steve captive.

It also splashed on the opposite side of the barrier, against the giant hockey puck. And as he watched, the water crashing idly against the barrier suddenly moved freely.

Steve noticed it possibly before Tony; while Tony stared at it, Steve was already shoving at the barrier, ripping past it and running through the water. The splash of his footsteps was far louder than it should have been; Tony had been expecting the crunch of ice breaking beneath Steve’s weight, but he didn’t understand the high-pitched, tinkling crash that accompanied Steve’s movements, as well.

Then he did. As he tried to get up, thinking to help Steve, or to at least sit or stand or something, his hand skidded through the thin layer of water. Something pierced his skin; again, it was more a sensation than an actual feeling, but it became real enough when the water turned pink, then red from his blood.

Oh. The pool. The not-glass. It had been shattered. By his suit? Which had come to him when he’d spilled enough of his blood biting into the ice. Thinking about it, his tongue did kind of throb vaguely.

Huh. He’d just been playing around with that configuration. He’d worried that it might make the damn suit jump out whenever he had an accident in the lab. But then again, Steve had always freaked out when he came up from the lab injured, so maybe it was for the best? It had sure worked out that way today. Bet Steve wouldn’t nag him about tinkering around with the suit again any time soon. For, like, maybe a week or two.

His suit was feeding him a lot of oxygen. Maybe too much? He felt dizzy. After he barely managed to give the command protocol to stop, he started coughing again.

When the oxygen cut out, he nearly passed out.

Right. Oxygen good. Dizziness preferred.

He heard more splashing, like the commercials with women in tiny bikinis running and giggling in the water. Then someone started wailing. And then something electronic broke, and Tony fell more concretely to the ground. He brought up scans of the room and struggled to read them. Steve, next to Magnet Man. Magnet Man on the floor, Steve over him, hands clenched into fists. Within his hands seemed to be more wires and metal, and for a second, he wondered what Steve hoped to accomplish with the remnants of his suit. But that wasn’t his suit, was it? Because Magnet Man had held a giant hockey puck like the one that had kept Steve prisoner.

The metal cube around him fell loose.

Oh. _Oh_.

“Systems, systems,” he mumbled, and then realized the only parts of the armor he actually wore at the moment were the helmet and the boots. The rest could no longer respond to the protocol to form up – or to anything probably. And now he thought he could taste the blood from his mouth, which was beginning to throb more vehemently now that he was out of the ice. The rest of him was starting to hurt, too.

“Aaah! No! You’re not supposed to–”

“Enough!” Steve shouted. He did not sound like Captain America. He sounded furious. He sounded scared. He sounded _vengeful_. Almost like an animal. “I’ve had enough of your games! Do you think you’re clever? Do you think you’ve become something great? Or did you think you could harm one of us and not have the rest rain our fury down upon you? Especially when you try to kill him right in front of us!”

And _that_ would be the sound of a fist meeting flesh. Tony had heard that one enough times in his life. He managed to get his head turned around in time to see Magnet Man fall to the floor. The water turned white from the flailing of his limbs, then pink as his flesh got caught by the shards of whatever had encased the water before.

“Cap,” he said. Steve turned to him on a dime. “If his toys are destroyed, he’s useless. The others should…”

Of course the walls crashed to pieces even as he spoke; the sudden roar of Thor’s war cry echoed through the basement chambers. Magnet Man’s eyes poked wide in his face as Carol flew straight to him, knocking him on his back with one glowing hand up and ready to strike. Thor was right behind her, his hammer sparking until he saw Steve and Tony standing in water. Clint, Natasha, and Vision slid through the newly gaping hole after him.

“There’s shards of something like glass in the water!” Tony called. “Don’t – land in it.”

Thor landed in it.

Natasha and Clint had the intelligence to stay back, at least, scooting away from the open hole before their feet got so much as damp. Vision, of course, just hovered in the air. Carol just stood on top of Magnet Man.

Steve glared down at the wet ground. “Thor, take this man and get him out of here. Find Fury and have him take care of it if you have to. Before I do something to him.”

“At once,” Thor said, his face solemn as he looked Tony over. Tony knew he probably looked half-daft with only his helmet and his boots on, but unless his skin was blue from the chill, there wasn’t much obviously wrong with him. Of course, that was when a shiver rocked him so hard he nearly slipped head-first back into the water. So maybe it was kind of obvious that he’d been through something.

“Wait. I told you – I’m helping. Don’t you see? This world needs _strong_ heroes. Ones who aren’t afraid of anything! Not you, or him. Not as you are. Don’t you get it? I’m fixing this. Fixing everything! I’m your _biggest_ –”

Thor flew Magnet Man out of the room.

“Get him to medical,” Steve said. There was no doubt who he could be talking about, even with his gaze still turned aside. Tony balked immediately.

“I am perfectly capable of getting warm in the comfort of my own home,” he said. It may not have been fully understood, however, because his tongue felt thick and torn, and he still couldn’t really feel his lips. Although, of all places on his body, his face was actually the warmest; the helmet was keeping him warm as well as providing him with air.

“Tony, you’re bleeding _everywhere_ ,” Carol said.

Tony blinked stupidly and looked down. It was true that the water around him was stained a dark pink, almost red. And the water right next to him was red. And now that he focused a little bit better, he could see blood gushing sluggishly from several wounds, both big and small. His brain nipped around itself for a few seconds before realizing he’d fallen straight into the water – and ice, and potentially-glass shards – as soon as his armor had ricocheted through the pool’s walls. And then he’d fumbled around like an idiot.

“Right.” He shrugged. “My argument stands.”

“No, it doesn’t.” And Steve was walking through the glass (or not-glass) himself to lean at Tony’s side. His eyes were very wide and very, very blue. “You are going to get checked out in a hospital. And then you are coming home with me.”

Tony stared at those eyes until his nearly crossed. “Okay,” he said.

Carol flew Tony out, and Vision grabbed Steve. Their exit was looked upon by several wide-eyed patrons of the Gaylord Hotel.

Despite it all, Tony still ended up chuckling at the thought.

* * *

The stay at the hospital was long, tedious, and painful. On pretty much every level. They had to wait for a little while, both because they were superheroes and thus needed their own private medical ward, and also because they weren’t unconscious or bleeding from some gaping hole or carrying a virus from another dimension, which apparently, in the hospital’s eyes, counted as the equivalent of someone else stubbing their toe really hard. Tony almost passing out from blood loss helped, though, and the damn nurses finally hustled them over and started cleaning his wounds.

He was subjected to a lot of poking and prodding after that. The doctors wanted him under a million blankets, since he adamantly refused to be placed in any kind of water to heat his body temperature back up. But with the sheer number of lacerations and punctures received from countless shards of what ended up being supposedly bullet-proof metal with transparency capabilities (which wouldn’t have stood up to either himself or Steve if they’d just been able to hit it, but still sounded pretty awesome), most of which was still embedded into his skin, blankets were momentarily off the table. So for now, the doctors were making do with him in only his underpants while Steve sat behind Tony, his arms wrapped around any part of him that didn’t make him wince in response or get in the way of the doctor’s work. Tony had more glass in his back, so the going was kind of terrible. Because of that, it took him a little while to notice how badly Steve was shaking.

He blamed the slight hypothermia and not-so-slight anemia for thinking, at first, that it might be because Steve was horribly injured, as well. But of course it wasn’t that. Every time the doctor pulled another sliver of thick transparent metal from his skin, Steve shivered. Every time he was ordered to open his mouth so the doctors could put more balm on his tongue and gums, both of which were deemed lucky to not have faced more permanent damage, Steve’s muscles went rigid. And when Tony got so damn tired he rested his head back against Steve’s broad shoulder, Steve’s breathing picked up. “’m sleepy,” he said, because it was something he often said to Steve in this position.

As he’d hoped, it settled Steve some. A little. Infinitesimally. Until the doctor said, “I would prefer you awake for this,” and Steve’s muscles tensed up all over again. Tony glared murder at the man.

It felt like it took hours. Hours of someone slowly digging tweezers into his wounds and pulling out smaller and smaller bits of glass. His entire body burned from the salve, and several cloths were blotted red and pink. The pile of shards in the petri dish was much more impressive than the pile of shrapnel pulled out when Extremis went in, and Tony stared in fascination. So much caused so little damage, while so little had caused so much. A part of him was horribly proud, that his weapons were so much more effective than Magnet Man’s (ugh). Another part was horrified, for the same reason. He was so _good_ at killing people.

When it was finally over, he was still cold, and so damn tired all he wanted to do was sleep. Steve was on his front now, balancing over Tony’s legs, his knees on either side of Tony’s waist, arms carefully holding him steady as he lolled bonelessly against his chest.

“Well, I think we’ve finally gotten them all. If you feel something else, or you find yourself bleeding again, please notify us. I imagine you’ll be wanting to leave now?”

Tony raised his head enough to glare blindly over his shoulder. “There’s no 'want’ involved. I’m leaving.”

“Tony,” Steve said, chastening by rote.

“Of course you are.” The doctor managed to sound only slightly long-suffering. He packed up his tools, carefully disposed of the four petri dishes filled with shit – one of those dishes was from Steve’s feet, and Tony was fairly positive Thor and perhaps even Carol were being tended to somewhere, as well – and gave Tony the requisite forms to get the hell out of dodge before the doctors dragged him back and tied him to the bed.

Steve wasn’t exactly quiet on the way back, but he didn’t say much, either. Instead he constantly touched. His hand on Tony’s arm as he got into the cab. His arm around Tony’s shoulder as they sat next to one another. Nearly freaking carrying him up the stairs of the mansion. Touching Tony’s hand, brushing up against him, as Tony waved off the worst of their friends’ concern once they got through the front doors. A hand on his back as they made their way to their room. Steve looked ready to yell at Tony when he lugged himself in the opposite direction of the bed, but stopped when Tony murmured, “come with me. If it’s not you, it won’t work.”

And Steve shut his mouth and followed Tony as he stripped his way into the bathroom.

It would be ridiculous to say that just turning on the shower head gave him enough fright to make him jump. It would also be pretty sad to admit that only Steve’s hand, once more on his back, bracing rather than restraining, kept him from turning straight back around and saying to hell with getting warm again. And when he still hesitated, Steve stepped under the spray fully clothed and held out one hand. Tony couldn’t help but reach out to take it.

The water was warm. He’d been encased in Steve’s heat for the past hour and a half, but it was still scalding to his goose-pimpled flesh. He shuddered and hissed as it hit his back and his wounds. Whatever salve the doctors had given him was going to be washed off, but Tony didn’t care. Once he got over the pain, the heat just felt _good_. He actually groaned at it. Steve helped him with the water itself; he stood just barely over Tony, keeping Tony’s head away from the water and mostly dry. He gave Steve a shaky smile for it, but Steve’s answering grin was more a grimace than anything else. Tony sighed. “I’m all right.”

“You almost died.” It was the fountain Tony had expected; Steve clenched his hands into fists to try to make it stop, but it didn’t work. Of course. “You almost – in _ice_ , Tony. Fuck.”

Tony reached out then; if Steve was cursing, it was bad. “Hey. I’m… not gonna lie; I’m going to have enough nightmares of this. But…” Really, there wasn’t much he could say that might make the memory any better. “I’m alive. I made it. I survived. And, fuck, Steve, do you really think half of why I fought so hard against the – the fact that I was in – kept from freaking out wasn’t because of you? I knew you were there watching me, so I made it out.” He touched Steve’s chest. His uniform stuck wetly to his skin, making the already defined lines of his pecs and abs nearly sculpted. The strain in them made Tony’s fingers nearly vibrate. “Oh, geez, just – come here.” And Tony breached the tiny space between them and wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck.

For a second, Steve moved to crush Tony in an embrace. For a second, Tony felt every inch of Steve’s presence along him, and the security and warmth it brought. And then Tony flinched slightly as Steve’s hand pressed against a deep puncture on his left shoulder blade, and Steve was off him like a shot. Tony fell against him, refusing to loosen his own hold. It forced Steve to grab him all over again, but this time, his touch was far more gentle. It was very nearly hateful.

Tony wanted to try to talk Steve down from the worst of it. But the truth was, he was struggling, too. The ice and cold hadn’t been nearly as horrifying as the water, but it was Steve’s equivalent. They wouldn’t get over it any time soon. He sighed at the thought. “So what was it all for, anyway? Was there even a point?”

Steve’s grip tightened again, for just a moment. “He wanted us to be perfect. He has talent, I’ll grant him that. Apparently he went into SHIELD’s old psychiatic files on us long before he decided to mess with the traffic systems – likely to lure us, actually. He saw I had bad memories of the ice, and he saw you had PTSD–”

“I do not,” Tony said.

Steve hesitated for a second too long. “That you had problems from your time in Afghanistan. He thought – I don’t even understand how he could think this. But he thought real heroes couldn’t have such weaknesses. He thought he needed to toughen us up, and he came up with that. Pool.”

The sad thing was, in a distant way, Tony could understand it. When he’d been growing up, Steve Rogers had been perfect. Kind, courageous, strong, smart. He became a 'hero.’ One of those figures not unlike statues, who always stood strong and above any reproach. And how many times had he or, really, anyone else on this planet, felt they were failing as human beings because they had so many flaws within them? A hero wasn’t as messed up as humans were. “But how can someone like that be our 'biggest fan’?”

“He was a fan of what he called our potential.” Carefully Steve sifted his fingers through Tony’s hair. There had been plenty of pieces of glass in there, made all the harder to get out because just the offer to wash it clean with water had made Tony pale and shake. Now Steve’s wet hand caught all the tiny bits of glass too small to be found through a regular search and washed them down the drain, moving Tony away long enough to open the drain entirely to ensure none got caught in the rim. Tony leaned tiredly against the wall as he did so. “He wanted us to be the heroes he thought we should be, or to go away so our legends could be perfect in our stead.”

“Well, I guess that would be where the 'went a little too far into the crazy’ got in him.” Steve finished draining away the glass, but his fingers still pulled through Tony’s hair. Tony relaxed against him, letting Steve’s head and body take the worst of the water. “But why the hell did I have to deal with… your stuff, too?”

Steve tensed, then deliberately relaxed once more. “I can only assume I was supposed to go next.”

Tony jerked. Steve, plunging into icy water? My god, that would be like torture. Steve would have… “ _fuck_. I’ll kill him.”

“Too late. We already defeated him.”

“As if the fight being over is going to stop me.” He didn’t move, though. He was too tired. “Tomorrow. I’ll kill him tomorrow.”

Steve’s huffed laughter caught hot on the back of his shoulder. “All right. Tomorrow.”

They stood silent in the shower for a long time then. Neither of them were really good at this. The aftermath. If he was alone, he would just go down to his laboratory and not come up until the pain literally blacked him into unconsciousness. If Steve was alone, he’d likely go to the gym and beat the hell out of everything Tony owned until he couldn’t move anymore – which, with his enhanced body, could take days. Together? Together, they would apparently just stand around in the shower until the water got cold, or until Tony fell asleep on his feet. Whichever came first.

Of course, when Tony made to do just that, Steve decided to pick him the hell up – princess-style, and they would have words about that when he had more energy for a decent fight – and drag him dripping out of the shower. Not that Tony was the one making the most mess – Steve’s clothes, soaked through and through, left a veritable lake of water in the middle of his bathroom floor. “Towels,” Tony grumbled and waved his hand bonelessly in the direction of the closet.

Steve snorted, but let Tony take his weight on his own legs as he opened the door and grabbed a handful of towels. One he draped over Tony’s head, another around Tony’s shoulders. The last he scrubbed over his own head, finally stripping bare himself and turning off the water. The air in the bathroom was still warm, and Tony just leaned against the cool wall and closed his eyes.

“Tony.” Steve sighed and stopped drying himself off, instead reaching up and gently scrubbing one towel through Tony’s hair. Tony scrunched up his face. He swatted lamely at Steve’s hands, but in the end, he just didn’t have it in him for more. He wanted to sleep.

Steve switched out the towels when he finished rubbing Tony’s hair dry, probably out of some misplaced thought to keep any tiny glass shards that might remain from being scrubbed into his skin. Not like he could possibly look any more like a pincushion than he already did. This second towel, however, felt soft against him. It took him a dazed moment to realize Steve was being careful. He sighed. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve lost so much blood, you’re practically asleep on your feet,” Steve said, and yeah, that was probably an issue. But he hadn’t needed a transfusion, which was as good a green light as one could expect. Considering how much blood it had seemed like he’d lost, it was probably better than Steve had expected, too. Besides, his mouth hurt far worse. Especially with the talking.

“What about him?” Tony asked, barely remembering to think about it. “Magnet Man or whatever?”

“The others will take care of him,” Steve said gruffly. Tony just rolled his eyes. He reached out and lightly grabbed one of Steve’s arms to keep himself balanced while Steve dried off his shoulders. “Turn,” Steve said softly, and when Tony did, Steve dried his back, as well. Tony yawned through it. It felt strange to be pampered; neither of them were much for it. But, Tony supposed, this was also a way for Steve to assure himself that Tony was all right. Which he was. Or would be.

Tony turned and slid slightly against the wall. Steve left him for a moment, only to return with the salve the doctor had given them on the way out. He popped open the lid and carefully squeezed some onto his fingers. Steve actually went to the trouble of rubbing his fingers together to warm it before touching it to the first of many, many wounds. “Are you all right?” Tony asked. Because he hadn’t even bothered to do so, even knowing Steve had injured himself in the shards of the pool and… and… well, he’d likely hurt himself trying to get to Tony while he drowned.

Steve stopped what he was doing, almost on a dime, and stared beyond Tony, toward the wet wall of the tub. He stayed silent far past the normal time for a response, until Tony finally pushed himself around to face Steve properly. Steve’s hands were clenched into tight fists, making the salve ooze slightly between the gaps of his fingers. “I watched you – I saw you struggling. And I couldn’t get to you. I couldn’t…” Steve closed his eyes, barring Tony from the sight of that bright, bright blue. “I saw…” He took a deep breath. Tony opened his mouth to interrupt, to apologize for asking. “I saw!” he said. “I have nightmares about – about the cold. About it taking everything from me, about me waking up and finding – and _I couldn’t get to you_. Can you imagine – it was a million times worse than – than _anything_ I have ever felt before. Not being there, not knowing, not being able to reach you in time. It’s so much different when I’m _right in front of you_. What good is this power when I can’t even use it to protect – to do what I need to do?”

Tony grabbed Steve’s fist before he could smash it into the tiles. They’d done enough picking of broken shards from torn flesh for one day, thank you. “You being there saved my life, Steve,” he said. Those brilliant eyes glared down at him, annoyed at being coddled with a lie. But it wasn’t a lie. It was the truth. “When I… hit that water. When it happened, I… remembered. And it…” He had to take a moment to control his breathing again, before he lost himself in the memory. His gums and tongue _hurt_ ; he could see why the doctor had demanded he not eat anything harder than grits. Or talk. And of course, everyone knew why, at that order, Tony had just snorted. “I couldn’t think. But even though the view was distorted, I could still see you. I knew you were watching. I knew I couldn’t afford to lose myself.” He gripped Steve’s fingers tight. “If you hadn’t been there, I don’t think I would have gotten it together enough to make it out.”

Steve made a strangled noise and pulled Tony to him. Tony wrapped his hands around Steve’s naked back and squeezed tight. Steve was still careful, but this time, his fingers pulled Tony flush against his flesh. Both of them were still too anxious to do more than rub slightly against one another, their dicks nearly lax in their need for comfort over completion. Tony ducked his head until he could rest it on Steve’s shoulder.

He didn’t know how long they stayed there, only that the wound on his shoulder, and other, smaller wounds, started smarting as his body slowly cramped into position, and that, despite the pricks of pain, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Steve finally moved when Tony had put so much weight onto the man as to nearly flop to the floor as his knees buckled under his own dead weight. “Time for sleep,” the man said, as if putting a recalcitrant child to bed. Tony swatted the man. It would have been a punch if he’d had the wherewithal to bother forming a fist.

Steve chuckled against his skin as he maneuvered the both of them into their bed. Tony grumbled as Steve stuck him beneath the covers and reached out. “C'mere.”

“Give me a minute,” Steve said, and he went to the sink and washed his hands, then turned off the lights in both the bathroom and their room before climbing under the covers, just as naked as Tony, and curling carefully around him. Tony snuggled right in, his body already heavy with sleep. “I’m going to have nightmares,” Steve said, his voice quiet, as if admitting some dreadful sin.

“Wanna know a secret?” Tony whispered. At the tilt of Steve’s cheek against the top of his head, Tony stage-whispered, “me, too.”

Steve curled over Tony slightly, as if now, finally, his bulk might be able to shield him. “I’ll be right here,” he murmured, his breath making the short bristles of Tony’s goatee tingle.

“That’s all I need,” he said, and sleepily kissed the closest of Steve’s skin – in this case, the underside of Steve’s jaw. The movement hurt his mouth, but it was worth it. “Now shh. I’m trying to sleep.”

Steve laughed silently. Tony let the rocking of Steve’s shoulders lull him into his dreams.


End file.
